Clarets have no answer to City

Twice we were beaten 5-0 by them last season, both of those coming at the Etihad, but this week we suffered a first big home defeat against Manchester City in almost ten years as they went home with a 4-1 victory.

They’ve not previously done too much damage against us in the Sean Dyche era at Turf Moor. We beat them first time with that George Boyd goal in 2015 and we drew the home game against them a couple of seasons ago. The other two had both ended in narrow one goal defeats. Last night, however, was different as they showed the sort of form that apparently has been lacking at times this season and the sort of form we’ve seen far too often recently at the Etihad.

This was always scheduled as a midweek fixture but I don’t think anyone envisaged an 8:15 p.m. kick off time, but that’s what Amazon Prime gave us and I do know of some supporters who decided not to attend because of that late start. I suppose, from a Burnley viewpoint, they didn’t miss too much given the result.

Sean Dyche surprised us ahead of kick off. Charlie Taylor was expected to be ruled out so that change, which saw Erik Pieters return to the starting line up, was no surprise. Aaron Lennon coming in for Robbie Brady was a straight swap but the surprise was seeing Ashley Barnes on the bench with Jeff Hendrick moving further forward allowing a Burnley league debut for loanee Danny Drinkwater.

I thought the start was OK. I’m not suggesting we were on top although we were more than holding our own but they have class all over the pitch and the night became even more difficult midway through the half when Gabriel Jesus finished superbly with a shot from the left hand side of the box.

Even so, we got to half time just one behind, just as we’d done twice at the Etihad last season before going on to lose both games 5-0. There, the second goal came on 52 minutes in the FA Cup and 54 minutes in the league game. This time it was 50 minutes with Jesus getting his second and that, frankly,wais game over. Yes, there was mention of the day at Man City when we came from two behind to draw but this is a far different City side now and the task facing us looked beyond monumental.

And so it proved. The hugely impressive Rodri scored a third with an outstanding strike and close to the end there was a fourth scored by Riyad Mahrez who had come on as a substitute.

We did have the final word with Robbie Brady scoring in the 89th minute, the goal coming two years and one day after he’d suffered that horrible knee injury at Leicester.